Some Things to Do if You or Your Child is Experiencing Guilt

If guilt
is not the result of an action precipitated by you or your child, it is
often is the result of feeling powerless and having to deal with your
own vulnerability. It can also result from feeling ashamed, which stems
from a belief that we should be a perfect child or parent; a result of
factors beyond our control, like what others did at the time. It can also
be the result of our mid-brain response to this threatening and terrifying
experience. We have no ability to control our mid-brain response. We may
wish we did not respond the way we did. Try to answer the following questions.

How
to Relieve Guilt

Identify what about
this situation makes you feel the most powerless/helpless.

Identify the personal
reactions you had about this situation that caused you to feel ashamed.

Answer the following
about these two issues:

Realistically,
was there anything you could have done to foresee this happening?

Do you believe
you should have been able to do something to prevent this?

What prevented
you from acting differently?

Have you asked
yourself what your condition was at the time? Were you hungry? tired?

Did
other conditions at the time distract you or prevent you from acting
or responding differently?

Have you considered
that how the brain responds to extreme stress and trauma determines
your initial
responses
and you
had no conscious
control to determine
your responses? (You weren’t trained and
conditioned to respond to situations like this.)

Have you considered
the fact that trauma distorts the events of the
actual situation and that we reacted
to these
distortions,
not
necessarily
the reality
of what actually happened?

Where is the evidence
that if you responded differently the outcome would have been different?

Have
you considered that a trauma is called a “trauma” because
it is a situation we can never be fully prepared
for and that it terrifies us in such a way that we are left feeling
powerless and
uncertain as to what to
do?

Are you taking
this one experience and condemning your entire life?

Have you focused
on the positive reactions of your behavior during this time? What
are those positive
reactions?

Can you accept
that your guilt may be a way to avoid your own vulnerability? We
can’t prevent everything that happens.

Can
you accept that the choices you have
available to you now are related to how
you are going to
respond, or
fight
to survive this
terrible experience?

After answering
all those questions, is there information you need to forgive yourself?
How can you obtain this information?

If you were helping
a friend who was feeling guilty what would you tell the friend to help
them?
Can you take the same advice?

If you continue
to blame yourself, ask yourself, “How am I helping
my child by punishing myself?” How
would you help your child by forgiving
yourself?

If your guilt persists,
you owe it your child, your family,
and yourself to seek help from
a trauma specialist.

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